Socialist realism in Romania
After World War II, socialist realism, like in the Soviet Union, was adopted by a number of new communist states in Eastern Europe, including Romania. This was accompanied by a series of organizational moves, such as the incarceration of numerous poets linked to the fascist paramilitary organization, the Iron Guard. Between 1948 and 1956, Romania's pre-existing system of values and corresponding cultural institutions were restructured in an attempt to create a "new socialist man". As in the political and economic spheres, cultural reforms were sometimes forcibly imposed, intellectuals' links with the West were severed, and the Romanian Academy and long-standing professional organizations such as the Society of Romanian Writers or the Society of Romanian Composers were dissolved and replaced with new ones, from which anti-communist members were removed. The works of antisemitic authors, such as Octavian Goga, Nichifor Crainic and Mircea Vulcănescu, were also banned.
In literature
The symbolic debut of socialist realism in literature, as an official ideology, took place in January 1948, when three articles signed by Sorin Toma were published in Scînteia. Titled "The Poetry of Putrefaction or the Putrefaction of Poetry", they dealt with the poetic works of Tudor Arghezi. The articles marked a complete break with interwar values: "With a foul-smelling vocabulary , Arghezi does in poetry only what Picasso did in painting, introducing excrement as artistic material... One finds bits of real beauty here and there in Arghezi's poetry." In 1950, the Mihai Eminescu School of Literature was founded, with the aim of forming a new generation of writers in the Romanian People's Republic. In an article published inViaţa Românească, Mihai Beniuc, a member of the Writers' Union of Romania, offered a definition of the socialist-realist poet: "He must be a philosopher familiar with the most profound ideas of the age , toward which Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin opened the way , and an activist in service of those ideas."Newly appeared literary critics, guided by Leonte Răutu, published studies in the spirit of the socialist realist doctrine. These included Ovid S. Crohmălniceanu—Un roman al industrializării socialiste, Silvian Iosifescu—Pe drumul înfloririi gospodăriei agricole colective, Mihai Gafiţa—Romanul luptei tractoriştilor, Nestor Ignat—O carte despre frumuseţea vieţii noi, Mihai Novicov—Pe marginea poeziei lui Dan Deşliu, Traian Şelmaru—Mitrea Cocor de Mihail Sadoveanu and Ion Vitner—Poezia lui A. Toma.
Prose works
A few representative examples:- Mihail Sadoveanu: Fantezii răsăritene, Păuna Mică, Mitrea Cocor, a novel that became a symbol of socialist-realist prose, with its depiction of class struggle, of positive heroes, of the Communist ironworker Florea Costea and the boiler-maker Voicu Cernea, of the moral and ideological transformation of Mitrea during his imprisonment in the Soviet Union.
- Zaharia Stancu, first de facto president of the newly founded Writers' Union of Romania : the novel Desculţ.
- Alexandru Jar: Sfârşitul jalbelor, Marea pregătire, novels about the Griviţa Strike of 1933 that followed the class-struggle pattern and gave its own historical truth.
- Petru Dumitriu: Drum fără pulbere and Pasărea furtunii, novels that hailed the "achievements" realised while digging the Danube-Black Sea Canal, known even at the time as a harsh political prison.
- Eusebiu Camilar: the novel Negura, a book filled with barbarism, stupidity and cruelty, all ascribed to the Romanian Army during its war "of conquering the Soviet Union".
- Eugen Barbu: author of the novels Groapa and Şoseaua Nordului.
Poetry
Other important representatives of socialist realist poetry, who transformed slogans of the Romanian Communist Party into their own verses, included:
- Dan Deşliu: Cântec pentru tovarăşul plan, and Lazăr de la Rusca, both massive poems that appeared on two pages of Scînteia.
- Victor Tulbure: Balada tovarăşului căzut împărţind Scînteia în ilegalitate.
- Marcel Breslaşu: Cîntec de leagăn al Doncăi.
- Mihai Beniuc: În frunte comuniştii, Cântec pentru tovarăşul Gheorghiu-Dej.
Drama
A "militant" theatre was conceived, with an active presence in the ongoing class struggle and solidarity with the entire people around the ideals of the Communist Party. Notable examples include:- Mihail Davidoglu: Omul din Ceatal, Minerii, Cetatea de foc.
- Aurel Baranga: Bal la Făgădău and, together with Nicolae Moraru, Anii negri.
- Maria Banuş: Ziua cea Mare, the first play about the newly collectivised Romanian village.
- Lucia Demetrius: Cumpăna, Vadul nou, Oameni de azi.
- Alexandru Mirodan: Ziariştii, Şeful sectorului suflete.
Architecture
Bucharest's Casa Scînteii is a signature example of a socialist-realist building in Romania.Plastic arts
Beginning in 1948, avant-garde currents of the first half of the 20th century, considered decadent and detached from reality, were rejected for their "bourgeois formalism". In 1949, the Plastic Artists' Cooperative was founded in Bucharest. There, promising young artists such as Ion Biţan, Traian Trestioreanu, Paul Gherasim, Virgil Almăşan and Ştefan Sevastre began to execute works of "visual agitation" and decoration, painting onto huge posters the portraits of the "four teachers" of Marxism-Leninism and of the heads of party and state in the Romanian People's Republic. As the state was the artists' sole patron, through the Plastic Fund, established artists began to adopt socialist realist themes in their work. Among them were Camil Ressu, Alexandru Ciucurencu and Corneliu Baba.Other socialist-realist painters, with representative works, included:
Theodor Harşia, Gavril Miklossy, Spiru Chintilă, Brăduţ Covaliu, Constantin Piliuţă, Gheorghe Iacob, Coriolan Hora, Ion Biţan, Gheorghe Şaru, Ştefan Szöny, Iulia Hălăucescu.
Emil Mereanu executed two notable sculptures in the style: a bust of Andrei Zhdanov for the Ştefan Gheorghiu Academy and a work called Bucurie in Floreasca Park, Bucharest.
In music
In 1949, the Society of Romanian Composers was dissolved and replaced with the Romanian Composers' Union. Some composers, considered reactionaries, collaborators with the previous fascist regimes, and formalists were excluded from the new organization: Mihail Jora, Ionel Perlea, Stan Golestan, Dinu Lipatti, Tiberiu Brediceanu, and Dimitrie Cuclin. Of George Enescu's works, only his two Romanian Rhapsodies were performed; certain composers like Richard Wagner were no longer played in concert or on the air; religious-themed music was no longer played; while jazz was labelled an expression of American imperialism, on the same level as chewing gum and Coca-Cola. The head of the Union was Matei Socor, who wrote the music for Communist Romania's first two national anthems, "Zdrobite cătuşe" and "Te slăvim, Românie". Composers were called on to write engaged, Party-oriented, and revolutionary works. In the report of the constituent session, Socor underlined that "the tasks of the Composers' Union are clear as regards the re-education of certain artists accustomed to bourgeois aestheticizing criteria" and asked for "the imposition of the Party spirit in music". Vocal-symphonic pieces were preferred, such as the oratorio Tudor Vladimirescu by Gheorghe Dumitrescu or the cantata for choir and orchestra Se construieşte lumea nouă by George Draga, as well as revolutionary hymns such as "Îi mulţumim din inimă partidului", "Hei rup!" or "Întreceri, întreceri, ciocane şi seceri".In the light or easy listening categories, hits included "Drag îmi e bădiţa cu tractorul", "Macarale râd în soare argintii" and "Hai Leano la vot!".